Yet she couldn’t do it. Venera had killed Hayden’s lover not ten minutes before and simply could not believe that he wouldn’t murder her in return if he got the chance.

She hadn’t wanted to kill Aubri Mahallan. The woman had lied about her intentions; she had joined the Fanning expedition with the intention of crippling Candesce’s defenses. She worked for the outsiders, the alien Artificial Nature that lurked somewhere beyond the skin of Virga. Had Venera not prevented it, Mahallan would have let those incomprehensible forces into Virga and nothing would now be as it was.

Once again Venera took out the bullet and turned it over in her fingers. She had killed the captain of the Rook and his bridge crew—shot them with a pistol—in order to save the lives of everyone aboard. Captain Sembry had been about to fire the Rook’s scuttling charges during their battle with the pirates. She had shot several other people in battle and killed Mahallan to save the world itself. Just like she’d shot the man who had been about to kill Chaison, on the day they’d met…

Either she had killed those people because of a higher purpose, or from naked self-interest. She could admit to being ruthless and callous, even heartless, but Venera did not see herself as fundamentally selfish. She had been bred and raised to be selfish, but she didn’t want to be like her sisters or her father. That was the whole reason why she’d escaped life in Hale at her first opportunity.

Venera cursed. If she flew away from Garth Diamandis and the key to Candesce now, she would be admitting that she had killed Aubri Mahallan not to save the world but out of pure spite. She’d be admitting that she’d shot Sembry in the forehead solely to preserve her own life. Could she even claim to have been trying to save Chaison too?

All her stratagems collapsed. Venera returned the bullet to her pocket, stood, and continued down the steps.

When she reached the street she looked around until she spotted the apartment where at this moment Brydda and the rest of the Buridan trade delegation must be frantically searching for her. Leaden with defeat and anger, she let her feet carry her in that direction.

13

There were plenty of people waiting for Venera at the docks, but Garth was not among them—oh, she had accountants aplenty, maids and masters of protocol, porters and reporters and doctors, couriers and dignitaries from the nations of Spyre that had decided to conspicuously ally with Buridan. There was lots to do. But as she signed documents and ordered people about, Venera felt the old familiar pain radiating up from her jaw. Today’s headache would be a killer.

She had to provide some explanation for why she’d returned early from the expedition, if only for the council representatives with their clipboards and frowns. “We were successful beyond expectations,” she said, pinioning Brydda with a warning glare. “A customer has come forward who will satisfy all of our needs for quite some time. There was simply no need to continue with an expensive journey when we’d already achieved our goal.”

This was far more information than most nations ever released about their customers, so the council would have to be content with it.

The return of the ruler of Buridan was a hectic affair, and it took until near dinnertime before Venera was able to escape to her apartment to contemplate her next move. There had been no messages from Sacrus, neither demands nor threats. They thought they had her in their pocket now, she supposed, so they could turn their attention to more important matters for a while. But those more important matters were her concern too.

She had a meal sent up and summoned the chief butler. “I do not wish to be disturbed for any reason,” she told him. “I will be working here until very late.” He bowed impassively, and she closed and locked the door.

In the course of renovations, some workmen had knocked a hole in one of her bedroom walls. She had chastised them roundly for it then discovered that there was an airspace behind it—an old chimney, long disused. “Work in some other room,” she told the men. “I’ll hire more reliable men to fix this.” But she hadn’t fixed it.

Ten minutes after locking the door, she was easing down a rope ladder that hung in the chimney. The huge portrait of Giles Thrace-Guiles that normally covered the hole had been set aside. At the bottom of the shaft, she pried back a pewter fireplace grate decorated with dolphins and naked women and dusted herself off in a former servant’s bedroom that she’d recast as a storage closet.

It was easy to nip across the hall and into the wine cellar and slide aside the rack on its oiled track. Then she was in the rebels’ bolthole and momentarily free of Buridan, Sacrus, and everything else—except, perhaps, the nagging of her new and still unfamiliar conscience.

The insane organ music from Buridan Tower’s broken pipeworks had ceased. Not that it was silent as Venera stepped out of the filigreed elevator; the whole place still hummed to the rush and flap of wind. But at least you could ignore it now.

“Iron lady’s here!” shouted one of the men waiting in the chamber. Venera frowned as she heard the term being relayed away down the halls. There were three guards in the elevator chamber and doubtless more lurking outside. She clasped her hands behind her back and strode for the archway, daring them to stop her. They did not.

The elevator room opened off the highest gallery of the tower’s vast atrium. It was also the smallest, as the space widened as it fell. The effect from here was dizzying: she seemed suspended high above a cavern walled by railings. Venera stood there looking down while Bryce’s followers silently surrounded her. Echoes of hammering and sawing drifted up from below.

After a while there was a chattering of footsteps, and then Bryce himself appeared. He was covered in plaster dust and his hair was disarrayed. “What?” he said. “Are they coming?”

“No,” said Venera with a half smile. “At least not yet. Which is not to say that I won’t need to give a tour at some point. But you’re safe for now.”

He crossed his arms, frowning. “Then why are you here?”

“Because this tower is mine,” she said simply. “I wanted to remind you of the fact.”

Waving away the makeshift honor guard, he strode over to lean on the railing beside her. “You’ve got a nerve,” he said. “I seem to remember the last time we spoke, you were tied to a chair.”

“Maybe next time it’ll be your turn.”

“You think you have us bottled up in here?”

“What would be the use in that?”

“Revenge. Besides, you’re a dust-blood—a noble. You can’t possibly be on our side.”

She examined her nails. “I haven’t got a side.”

“That is the dust-blood side,” said Bryce with a sneer. “There’s those that care for the people; that’s one side. The other side is anybody else.”

“I care for my people,” she said with a shrug, then, to needle him, “I care for my horses too.”

He turned away, balling his hands into fists. “Where’s our printing press?” he asked after a moment.

“On its way. But I have something more important to talk to you about. Only to you. A… job I need done.”

He glanced back at her; behind the disdain, she could see he was intrigued. “Let’s go somewhere better suited to talking,” he said.

“More chairs, less rope?”

He winced. “Something like that.”

“You can see Sacrus from here,” she said. “It’s a big sprawling estate, miles of it. If anybody is your enemy, I’d think it was them.”

“Among others.” The venue was the tower’s library, a high space full of gothic arches and decaying draperies that hung like the forelocks of defeated men from the dust-rimmed window casements. Venera had prowled through it when she and Garth were alone here, and—who knew?—some of those dusty spines settling into the shelves might be priceless. She hadn’t had time to find out, but Bryce’s people had tidied up and there were even a few tomes open on the side tables next to several cracked leather armchairs.